Ever wonder where your answers go on the Survey Draw, or why you’re being asked certain questions? Been invited to a “too good to be true” paid research session? Let me explain.

Back when I launched PMP (FPL) in 2011 internet advertising was the answer to everything. Now it’s a mess, thanks to FANG‘s, scammers, GDPR and attention seeking advertisers. What do I think the answer to getting rid of advertising is? Answers!

We’ve been working hard to find uses for the ~100,000 daily responses that you voluntarily submit to us on the Survey Draw, so that we can turn down the ads, turn up the prize pots, and keep growing. This is where we are:

Bonus survey matching
You’ll be aware of the Pollfish surveys, and how being screened out can be an annoyance. So, we’re working directly with survey companies to match you to surveys based on what you’ve told us. We usually give £1-5 Bonus depending on how long the survey is, and 50p if you get screened out. This is much more generous than the Pollfish ones and you have a much lower chance of being screened out, so go keep an eye out. We’ll continue to work with more and more of these companies so expect lots more soon.

Paid research recruitment
Some market research companies have very specific briefs, looking for hard to find people to attend “in-depth” studies (focus groups, interviews, etc.) in specific locations. They often have very generous incentives. In fact, we’ve got one running at the moment targeting people who can attend an interview in Barnstaple next week paying £90! There was some confusion about this in the comments section over the weekend. It’s legitimate, and we hope to be getting more of these 🙂

Polls
We’ve told you about Findoutnow.co.uk, our rapid polling service. We’ve been using it to ask, amongst many other things, politically pertinent questions, often about Brexit, the Tory leadership contest, and no doubt whatever comes next… We’re doing this because we want to get our name mentioned by political writers in the media to drum up some business, and not for any of the reasons that we’ve been accused of by some pretty panicky emails we’ve received. Just because we ask a question about a political party does not mean that we are working for them, and we are certainly not doing what Cambridge Analytica were doing. Your answers are always provided in aggregate. You won’t be targeted with fake news, etc, and we don’t have your permission to pass on anything personally identifiable, even if we wanted to.

“Big data”
Admittedly, another scary sounding thing, but really, there’s nothing to worry about. We’re talking to data companies about whether they might pay us for information about consumer habits, attitudes, etc. and how they relate to postcodes. Eg. People in N4 3JG love cats. Well, at least they do in this office.

Hope that all makes sense. Do feel free to ask us questions in the comments.

Cheers!

Chris & Team 🙂